The Gaming Standards Association announced that GSA Europe Managing Director Mark Pace has been elected by the Comité Européen de Normalisation (CEN) to lead the creation of a European Union online gaming reporting standard. CEN has established Technical Committee 456 to create this standard in support of online gambling supervision. GSA Europe joined Technical Committee 456 as a Liaison Organization in 2017.
The Technical Committee’s mandate from the European Commission is directly aligned with work that GSA Europe has already started—namely, to create a single standard set of data elements and single standard way in which data is provided by online gambling providers to EU Member State regulatory authorities. In addition to joining and now leading the Technical Committee’s work, GSA Europe also donated their draft Regulatory Data Set and Regulatory Reporting Interface to CEN seeking to help jump-start the Committee’s work.
“Joining CEN’s TC456 as a Liaison Organization, and now having GSA Europe’s managing director elected to lead its efforts, is a significant recognition of GSA’s 20-plus year commitment to creating gaming industry standards,” GSA President Peter DeRaedt said. “GSA has a proven track record of delivering standards that have been implemented worldwide and which are beneficial to entities in both the policy and industry domains.”
“Being elected to act as a co-project leader of the Technical Committee is a huge honor,” said Pace. “I am deeply appreciative for the votes of so many member states and will work earnestly to help deliver a sound technical solution that will benefit regulators as well as online gambling operators and suppliers. I look forward to working with my co-project leader Mr. Naessens from the Belgian Commission des jeux de hazard, as well as with the Committee’s Chairperson Mme. Pinson from the French L’Autorité de régulation des jeux en line, to successfully fulfill the committee’s mandate.”
GSA Europe’s Regulatory Data Set, donated to CEN, is a draft data dictionary listing all the data elements that online gambling systems generate. This data dictionary identifies each element, defines what it is, and specifies the format in which it will be presented. The draft Regulatory Reporting Interface is an XML-based protocol that defines how each of those data elements are exposed to support real-time, near real-time and periodic reporting. Combined, these draft standards represent over two years of work, and while not pertinent to Technical Committee 456’s mandate, also extend to land-based gambling activities.
